How were the T206 printed?

[Lunker21]

Ok... Im looking for resources to understand how the T206 were printed.
I have scratched the surface to understand the notion of player repeats in columns, with multiple players in same column. (From cards with same name top bottom, and some w different player over/under)
And different players in each row. (From cards w diff players side to side)
...and obviously different backs and factories.

Quick questions...
1)How were the presses set up for the different colors for one player?
(7 different presses? One for each color plate? All arranged with the same AAAABBBB columns and ACEG columns?) So like 42 plates x 7 presses for one player card run?

2)What were the plates? Stone? Metal?

3)once fronts printed all colors, Were all backs printed centrally, then cut, then shipped to diff factories for 'fac stamp' (on cut cards?)
.. or were all fronts printed centrally, shipped large, then backs/fac# printed in separate locations, then cut?
... or were there multiple sets of plates for same player at separate print shops? (So fronts, backs, factory # printed in different locations, then cut?)

Has there been any comparison on prints of a single pose from one factory vs another? (Meaning... if there were multiple plate sets, were there slight differences?)
...and if there arent differences between sungle pose from different factories, does that imply a single set of plates for a player pose, shipped factory to factory?

...and what happened to the plates? Not a single remains? Metal and melted for war? Stone and resurfaced?

...finally, overprints... if a fac 30 ny being overprint by fac42 nc... front and back printed at fac30 ny.. then cut.. then shipped to fac42 nc to overprint?
If overprint by whole big sheet... all 'offsets' of a miss should occur in exact same (wrong) spot on the number of cards on the sheet...
Are there any examples of an overprint error in exact same wrong spot on different players?

Thanks in advance!

Craig

[Lunker21]

.... and... if there were four copies of a player pose in a column... does that imply 4 plates of that pose and color... or was it one plate, w the sheet moved firward one card height... meaning four presses of one plate (instead of 1 press of 4 plates?)

[G1911]

We have learned much in the last few years, but there are many blanks and deductions still.

For number 2, they used printing stones.

For number 3:

It seems very unlikely to me that multiple facilities were used to produce a single sheet. It makes much more sense that the sheet was run through both sides, cut up, and the cut cards shipped to the factories for packing. As American Lithographic, Bien, Brett and others were naming, marketing, and designing packs for the tobacco monopoly, the shipping was presumably easy as they were already sending tons of material. Multiple facilities were probably used over the course of production; the claim that all the T cards were made at American Lithographs's headquarters office in NYC is a busted myth that never had any evidence for it.

What happened to the plates? They are lost to time unless one appears. They or the production material and art required to make them must have been kept around by one of the lithography firms until 1919 at least to produce the final T206 clone set, T213-3. Nobody would have considered them to have any value at the time.

Overprintes were probably edited at the lithographer, rerunning existing stock sheets to X out the factory and overstep a different one rather than reprint the whole sheet, in order to comply with the law requiring the factory to be present on premiums. There's no evidence or reason to think that the tobacco factories did any of the printing directly themselves.

The sheets are probably larger than most imagine - other T card material strongly suggests very large sheet sizes, which surprised me. There may not have been a large number of unique subjects per sheet though; as no uncut T206 material is known outside of the Wagner strip that clearly isn't production, if that is even authentic. Miscuts have shown lots of top/bottom and some adjacent cards, but not enough to piece together anything approaching a full sheet. There is evidence that other sheets of T cards from the same AL/ATC partnership of the same physical size as T206 contained 25 unique cards (T42).

Steve B. needs to come answer the technical questions , and Pat will know much more about the T206 specifics.

[Lunker21]

Thank you thank you!!
(Where are those stones?!!!)

[Jeffrompa]

Originally Posted by Lunker21

Thank you thank you!!
(Where are those stones?!!!)

Best question of the year .

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by Lunker21

Thank you thank you!!
(Where are those stones?!!!)

Originally Posted by Jeffrompa

Best question of the year .

Storage could be a problem.

166510 - Copy.jpg

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Lunker21

.... and... if there were four copies of a player pose in a column... does that imply 4 plates of that pose and color... or was it one plate, w the sheet moved firward one card height... meaning four presses of one plate (instead of 1 press of 4 plates?)

More like 8+ of each subject in a column.

The plate would have been a bit bigger than the sheet, and would have printed one color for an entire sheet all at once.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by steve B

More like 8+ of each subject in a column.

The plate would have been a bit bigger than the sheet, and would have printed one color for an entire sheet all at once.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge, Steve. (and Greg)

and a T206..


.

[atx840]

Steve is the master on all things printing.

My theory is a lot were printed while drunk.

[tedzan]

The actual "printing" of millions of T206 cards using Stones is going back to the "stone-age"

Actually, engraved images from the stones were then transferred to metal plates to be printed.

The American Lithographic Bldg. (where the T206 cards were printed) still stands in NYC at the
corner of 19th St. and 5th Ave. They used 19" wide cylindrical presses to produce the T206
cards.

Illustrated here is my concept......using the example of the Exclusive 12 cards in the 460-only
Series. I base this concept on American Lithograph's use of 19" wide cylindrical presses and the
standard size 19" x 24" cardboard sheets of that period (1909 - 1911).


.. v ............................................ 19" x 24" sheet .............................................v



This topic has been discussed on Net54 as far back as 2007 (and several more times since then).
For more specific info regarding the Exclusive 12 group, check out this link.... T206 Reference


TED Z
.

[steve B]

My comments in blue

Originally Posted by Lunker21

Ok... Im looking for resources to understand how the T206 were printed.
I have scratched the surface to understand the notion of player repeats in columns, with multiple players in same column. (From cards with same name top bottom, and some w different player over/under)
And different players in each row. (From cards w diff players side to side)
...and obviously different backs and factories.

Quick questions...
1)How were the presses set up for the different colors for one player?
(7 different presses? One for each color plate? All arranged with the same AAAABBBB columns and ACEG columns?) So like 42 plates x 7 presses for one player card run?

Typically the plate for each color would be used, then the next one and so on. The sheer size of the print runs most likely meant multiple presses, maybe not the 8 plus a back, but more than one.

2)What were the plates? Stone? Metal?
Simple answer- Stones. Huge about 2-4" thick slabs of specially prepared limestone
Longer answer - We know for sure that stone plates were used for at least some of them. There's a card that someimes comes with a nail impression that essentially could only be from a flatbed press printing from stones.
But..... It was a time of technological change in printing, and there is a bit of evidence that a two color press may have also been used, which would probably be metal plates. It's also possible that a press that printed from a roll of cardstock rather than from individual sheets was used for some and that would probably have been metal plates.


3)once fronts printed all colors, Were all backs printed centrally, then cut, then shipped to diff factories for 'fac stamp' (on cut cards?)
.. or were all fronts printed centrally, shipped large, then backs/fac# printed in separate locations, then cut?
... or were there multiple sets of plates for same player at separate print shops? (So fronts, backs, factory # printed in different locations, then cut?)

They would have been printed all in the same plant. And probably cut in the same plant too. Then delivered to the appropriate factory as finished product.

Has there been any comparison on prints of a single pose from one factory vs another? (Meaning... if there were multiple plate sets, were there slight differences?)
...and if there arent differences between sungle pose from different factories, does that imply a single set of plates for a player pose, shipped factory to factory?
Yes! A few of us have done this. The back front combinations also fit into groups. (if you want to get into this.... welcome to the crazy club!)
Fronts were most likely printed generically then given backs to match an order from a particular brand.

...and what happened to the plates? Not a single remains? Metal and melted for war? Stone and resurfaced?

The stones were large and expensive. They were almost always resurfaced and redone with new transfers.
The master stones that transfers were printed from are actually not all that expensive for stuff other than cards.
There are a couple out there with cards, ne hockey card and I think one other. But the large stones were all resurfaced and reused. (Now that I've put it as an absolute thing one will turn up tomorrow... )

...finally, overprints... if a fac 30 ny being overprint by fac42 nc... front and back printed at fac30 ny.. then cut.. then shipped to fac42 nc to overprint?
If overprint by whole big sheet... all 'offsets' of a miss should occur in exact same (wrong) spot on the number of cards on the sheet...
Are there any examples of an overprint error in exact same wrong spot on different players?

Overprints were probably done on complete sheets at the printer. Alternately, they might have done partial sheets on a smaller press, but I think that's unlikely. The location of the overprint would be subject to the same registration issues and/or the same faulty layout issues any of the other colors were. Overprint position relative to the subject on the front is something I don't think has been studied in any detail yet. But it's a good avenue to look into.

Thanks in advance!

Craig

[ty_cobb]

very good work, enjoy all the posts , would be interesting to hypothesize what is on a wagner sheet! tales back in the day may indicate plank on the sheet? one can only imagine the sheer heart attack you would sustain finding 10 wagners on the same printing sheet

as to backs /overprints , Ive seen quite a few oddities in the ATC T Flag series of all kinds of massive factory overprinting that far superceded anything that happened in T206, and are the back overprints a thing that happen after?

[ty_cobb]

early discussion thread of this topic below
https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=162935